Spindrift is now available :-)

[julesjones]

Spindrift just went on sale at Loose Id:
http://www.loose-id.com/detail.aspx?ID=190


When myth comes to life, love becomes legendary…

Writer Richard Dunn's managed to get himself accepted by the
fishermen in the village he lives in for half the year. Just how well
accepted he doesn't realize, until the night he stumbles on an
argument involving a local man he hasn't met before--and finds
himself asked to give a silkie a bed for the night.

Niall is a silkie. A creature of legend—a seal, able to become human
by removing his skin and to become seal again by slipping it back on.
That's a bit of a problem, since Niall's seal-skin has been stolen by
a man in love with Niall's sister. The thief will only give it back
in exchange for his sister's, which means he's trapped in human form.
Unless he betrays her, or his friends find his skin.

Trapped ashore, with no official identity and no bank accounts, Niall
needs a refuge. His human friends think that a wealthy writer with a
known ability to respect other people's secrets might be just the
ticket. All the better that both of them are gay and single...

But Richard's only too aware of the legends of silkie women abducted
and forced to marry land men. It's hard to ignore the old tale, when
one of the fishermen has just made a bid to re-enact it. It's not an
example Richard wants to follow. He's determined to help Niall get
his skin back, even if it costs him the love of a lifetime.

To read an excerpt, visit: http://www.loose-id.com/JJSex.aspx

Comments

[hafren.livejournal.com]

Fascinating premise. The only male of the species I can recall from lit is the Great Selkie of Sule Skerry, who figures in a terrifying Scottish folk ballad. It's always been a beguiling notion, I think partly because seals are such sensuous-loking creatures, with the fur and those enormous eyes. (Does Niall have big melting eyes?)

[julesjones]

I did some digging around to research the background, and turned up something which I think I'd known but forgotten - the silkie men could be called by human women looking for a lover, and often didn't need to be called. :-) They'd go roaming around on land in human form, and human women couldn't resist their glamour. Convenient excuse for babies of unknown parentage, I should think. There's some fascinating stuff about human/silkie pairings resulting in mixed race children, including an explanation for s genetic problem in one of the island populations that causes webbed toes and fingers, and/or thick horny growths of skin on the hands and feet.

I did mention the eyes in the description of Niall's sister, who's in seal form when Richard first meets her.

[hafren.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the fact that seals cry tears made them regarded as human too?

[julesjones]

That, and apparently they sing in human-sounding voices as well. I was going to use the singing in the novel, but there wasn't an appropriate place in the end. I may well use it if I write a third book.

There's a nice little collection of silkie lore here
http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/selkiefolk/index.html

[blakefancier.livejournal.com]

*squee* I bought it this morning. Guess what I'm reading at lunchtime?

[julesjones]

Oh good. :-) Let me know what you think - is it what you expected after listening to me burbling about it at Baycon?

[blakefancier.livejournal.com]

It was brilliant! It actually made me teary-eyed in a few places-- and since I was reading it at work, I kinda had to scrunch up so no one could see. :D

[julesjones]

But you *know* how much I like angst. :-) And there are some very dark things implied by the need for the dance, although with this being a romance novel I left them implied rather than beating people over the head with it.

I'm glad it lived up to expectations. And hey, it *does* have a happy ending. :-)

[blakefancier.livejournal.com]

Yes, the happy ending made *me* very happy. :D Although, I do need to re-read the story because I devoured it in the first reading. I'm sure I missed some of the nuances of the story.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I'll get a copy, but I just got landed with the editorial comments and suggestions for my YA book, and I"m still working on the "Embers of Heaven" novel editorial fixes, and I'm leaving for Europe in two weeks - it looks like I won't have much time for READING it before October... [sigh]

But I like the synopsis - yours or the publisher's?...

A.

[julesjones]

I know the feeling with "but when do I get time to read *other* people's books?" - and I don't think one of mine is the ideal thing to be reading when trying to do edits on YA. :-)

That's the marketing manager's tweak of something I sent them. She's very good at taking a rough draft of a blurb and polishing it nicely. And I'm not just saying that because she has me on her LJ flist and *reads* my LJ. :-)

This one's 57,000 words, but I've also written a 17,000 word "what happened next", currently sitting waiting for my editor to decide whether it squeaks by as a romance. The pair together just about fall within the length range for a print book, so I'm hoping that that will be a possibility in the future. alg said at Writer's Weekend that a gay paranormal romance is going to be a hard sell to her at the moment purely because of the "what genre does the bookstore chain file it under?" problem, but she and various other people there also said that markets are starting to open up to gay romance, if ever so slowly.

[anghara.livejournal.com]

well, um, yeah, there's that - I'd probably wind up producing a whole new subgenre - X-rated YA...

[grin]

A.

[ex-emilyvei.livejournal.com]

This sounds fascinating! I wrote an MM selkie short story which is an an anthology I am shopping around at the moment--I love the mythology.

[julesjones]

This one was supposed to be a short story, but it got away from me. :-)